Jesse Arreguin, who will become the Berkeley City Council’s youngest member after winning the election Tuesday, celebrates his victory with his parents Humberto and Cindy Arreguin and Councilmember Kriss Worthington (left) at his campaign headquarters on Uniiversity Avenue around midnight.

Extra

Berkeley Councilmember Kriss Worthington, who for the last seven years has been advocating for a strong sunshine ordinance to give citizens access to government records and meetings, will put the Berkeley Sunshine Committee's draft ordinance-crafted as an alternative to one written by the city attorney-on the agenda for the Dec. 8 City Council meeting.
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At the Landmarks Preservation Commission meeting Thursday, preservationists and architects warned against stripping historic buildings off their original windows, explaining that it could take away character-defining features, and advised homeowners to instead invest in sealing problem areas, weather-stripping and making use of natural ventilation.
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An out-of-control party at the Gaia Arts Center in downtown Berkeley two weeks ago prompted Berkeley Police to label the venue as a public nuisance, leaving its owners susceptible to a fine from the city if a similar incident occurs there in the next four months, authorities said Thursday.
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Neighbors worried about cell phone antenna radiation and angry at city officials who have allowed it in their neighborhoods poured out their frustrations at the Berkeley Planning Commission meeting on Wednesday night.
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Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's proposal to make additional state education budget cuts to stimulate California's flagging economy set off alarm bells for school districts, many of which had been fearful of mid-year reductions when the governor released a delayed state budget in September.
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Community activist and leader Beatrice Leyva-Cutler led the Berkeley Board of Education elections Tuesday night with 37 percent of the vote, with incumbent and board president John Selawsky coming in second at 30 percent.
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Some community members are outraged that the City of Berkeley-run Addison Street Windows Gallery decided not to display posters from a national series of exhibitions called the “Art of Democracy” on the basis of curatorial judgment, and instead replaced them with pottery during election week.
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Features

In the Oakland City Council race, Tuesday’s general election runoff ended with the two candidates in almost the identical position they finished in last June: AC Transit At-Large Board member Rebecca Kaplan at 61.95 percent (61,431) and Oakland School Board member Kerry Hamill at 37.16 percent (36,845).
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Local voters picked and chose between non-Berkeley measures on Tuesday’s ballot, holding on to their money with one hand, giving out money with the other, and redistributing the money in one city budget with whatever appendage was available.
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As election day approached, District 4 council candidate Terry Doran finally saw some of the dollars developer Ali Kashani asked his colleagues to give—though most came from one company, Hudson McDonald.
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Hundreds of students and activists from all over the Bay Area marched from Ferry Park near the Embarcadero to the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) office in downtown San Francisco Friday to protest what they called atrocities committed against undocumented immigrants by code enforcement officials in sanctuary cities.
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Whatever shape the new downtown plan takes before the City Council signs off on the document next May, it’s certain to be very different from the draft prepared by the citizens the council chose to draft it.
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The citizens’ group working on an alternate version of the Berkeley city attorney’s draft sunshine ordinance has released its final draft and will meet with Councilmember Kriss Worthington Monday to discuss a plan to introduce it in the City Council agenda for December.
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Jerry Thomas, office administrator at the Berkeley Drop-In Center on Adeline Street died of complications from asthma last month. Jerry worked as a disability check distributor and general office administrator for the past 10 years. She was 54.
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Election Section

The security guards had broken us up, trying not to hurt us. For five minutes we had swung at each other, landing punch after punch and calling each other names. The Longfellow schoolyard, filled with active students, watched all this.
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I am proceeding with the filing of multiple complaints against officers of the Berkeley Police Department. I don’t think it will help. The Berkeley Police lack cultural sensitivity and by all evidence common courtesy and sense. They are, by and large, an incendiary gang in blue that should be curtailed in Southwest Berkeley.
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For those who care about the University of California and its relations with our broader world, the catalyzing opportunity for real change is for distinct groups to find common cause and democratize the UC. Collectively, can we reverse the widening chasm between a concerned public and an aloof, unaccountable Board of Regents composed of elite, wealthy businessmen. The Phoenix Project for UC Democracy aims to build a coalition to democratize the UC Regents, and our kickoff event will be Tuesday, Nov. 18, 7 p.m. at the Hillside Club in Berkeley (www.UCdemocracy.org for more info).
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I grew up in this city and I am so disappointed in it I could just spit. How its citizenry can keep electing someone as mayor who quite obviously doesn’t care about their wants, needs or rights escapes me.
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By the time this story hits print, either Tom Bates or Shirley Dean will have won the election for mayor in Berkeley. The Berkeley voters will be able to count on one thing for certain; a back burner for civil rights, police accountability, and honestly affordable housing.
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As a resident of Albany, I have read Sharon Hudson’s series on the problems created with Berkeley’s electoral system with fascination. Her commentaries, published in the Oct. 9, 16 and 30 issues of the Berkeley Daily Planet, present a brief history of Berkeley’s previous “at-large” system of electing the City Council, the current district system of election, and the problems created by each.
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The election of Barack Obama as 44th president of the United States is a benchmark event in African American’s long, long history in this country. However the overwhelming support Obama received from the nation’s black communities, support that saw unprecedented numbers of African Americans marching as one to the polling booths, stemmed from emotions and events far removed the world of modern politics.
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The first of the 388 workers arrested in the immigration raid on the Agriprocessors meatpacking plant in Postville, Iowa, were deported in mid-October, having spent five months in federal prison. Their crime? Giving a bad Social Security number to the company to get hired. Among them will be a young man who had his eyes covered with duct tape by a supervisor on the line, who then beat him with a meathook. The supervisor is still on the job.
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As Jesus says in Matthew 26:52, “those that take up the sword shall perish by the sword.” In the case of just-defeated initiative Measure KK, the “sword” its proponents took up was their conviction that the issue would be considered an up or down vote on one specific Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) project—AC Transit’s proposal to run dedicated-lane buses on Telegraph Avenue and on into downtown. As mayoral candidate Shirley Dean said at a neighborhood meeting early in the campaign, “Measure KK is the best way we have to stop the BRT in Berkeley.”
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In her book, The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism, Naomi Klein posits that Israel’s embrace of disaster capitalism has diminished the need for it to engage in meaningful peace negotiations with the Palestinians and its Arab neighbors. For years, it was conventional wisdom that you needed political stability to have steady economic growth. However, Israel has turned this conventional wisdom on its head. Israeli occupies Gaza and the West Bank, engages in violence with the Palestinians, is experiencing political turmoil, yet the country is experiencing an economic boom. How?
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Columns

Over the next four years the U.S. will confront several key foreign policy decisions. While the president and the executive branch—in particular the Departments of State and Defense—will play an important role in this, Congress has abrogated its constitutional responsibilities in the making of foreign policy. Here is Dispatches wish list for the coming administration.
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If one wanted to put a human face on the historical reason African-Americans sometimes seem so, well, ambiguous about our American experience, Nathan Bedford Forrest would be as good a place to start, as any. The Tennessean Forrest was probably the most brilliant and feared cavalry commander in the Confederate Army, a slash-and-burn fighter dubbed the “Wizard of the Saddle” by his contemporaries.
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The instant Barack Obama tossed his hat in the presidential ring nearly two years ago, the twin mantra was that he could be the first black president, and if that happened, America would finally have kicked its race syndrome.
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I have a terrible confession to make. I feel really bad about it, but it’s probably not going to change any time soon. I don’t care if your roof leaks. Okay, I know that I’m supposed to make a big deal about this sort of thing but I’m not going to. There, I said it and I feel a whole lot better.
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Arts & Events

If your impression of Japanese cinema consists entirely of samurai films, Pacific Film Archive's "Cinema Japan" series, running through Dec. 17, should set you straight. But these 24 films, which embody the breadth and depth of Japanese film in the post-World War II era—great as they are—may only whet the appetite. For viewers interested in delving further, three recent DVD releases from Criterion offer a great place to start.
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Pacific Film Archive is presenting “Cinema Japan,” a series of two dozen classic Japanese films as a tribute to Kashiko Kawakita, who along with her husband under the auspices of the Kashiko Film Institute, played a major role in bringing Japanese cinema to the attention of the western world.
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A symposium with with Jacqueline Baas, curator and former director of the University Art Museum, William T. Wiley, artist, Fred Martin, artist, writer and Dean Emeritus of the San Francisco Art Institute, Mark Levy, professor and author, and others, from 1 to 5 p.m. at JFK University Arts & Consciousness Gallery, 2956 San Pablo Ave., 2nd Floor. Enter at Ashby Ave. 649-0499. www.jfku.edu/asian
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The Starry Plough, South Berkeley’s Irish pub, celebrates its 35th anniversary this weekend. Festivities begin at 9:30 p.m. Friday with the Buffalo Roam Reunion Show and continue with live music all day Saturday. $10. 841-2082. 3101 Shattuck Ave.
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